


Eugenics

by foreword



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-22
Updated: 2005-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:18:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4913878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreword/pseuds/foreword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his eleventh birthday, Argus didn’t get any cake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eugenics

Argus Filch was a good little boy. He always kept his room so clean, and brushed his teeth, and kept out of the way of his parents’ guests.

He was prone to temper tantrums on occasion, as all little boys are, but he was always punished, and afterwards he’d make up for it the best that he could. His mother would call him her “clean little angel,” the way he’d tidy up the house after he’d been beaten. He always deserved much more than the beatings he got, he knew.

His father thought it was unnatural for a little boy to be so clean, but Argus made his mother happy.

As he grew older, his punishments became more severe. Argus was sure it was because he should know better, but sometimes he hadn’t broken any rules.

He still wanted to be a good boy.

Now his parents whispered when he left the room, and left him all alone in the house some weekends to go off to meetings. Argus wanted to go with them, but he wasn’t allowed.

His mother didn’t care when he cleaned things anymore. He still wanted to be a good boy, but now he didn’t think he was good enough to do it.

On his eleventh birthday, Argus didn’t get any cake.

His parents took him along when the left the house that weekend, and Argus was so excited he couldn’t speak. He was afraid to, afraid that he would remind them that he was there and they’d make him go home.

He was surprised when they stopped at a dingy shop off of a street his parents took him to buy robes. He liked that street. When he had been younger and stupider, his parents always told him they’d take him for ice cream if he was good. But Argus was never good. He only wanted to be.

But this street wasn’t the one with the ice cream. This was the street with all of the scary stores and angry people, and it had always frightened Argus.

The shop they were in now didn’t have a bell on the door. There was a skull on the counter and Argus wondered how it had gotten there.

“This the one?”

Argus looked over his shoulder, searching for some idea of what the gruff character behind the counter was talking about. He realised with a jolt that the man was talking about him.

Argus must have been _very_ bad.

He looked up at his parents with eyes full of tears, but they only looked disgusted. His mother nodded and looked away.

“Come on, then.”

The frightening stranger grabbed Argus by his upper arm, hauling him around the counter. His thighs were suddenly warm and wet and Argus hoped they wouldn’t notice. He hadn’t wet his pants since he was little. He should know better.

The man didn’t take long, but it seemed like forever to Argus. It hurt. It hurt more than any beating he’d ever received, and he wondered what he’d done to earn it. He couldn’t see his parents anymore. The man had taken him into a dark back room and he muttered words and waved his wand and Argus wondered when he’d get a wand of his own.

And then, like the flip of a switch, there was pain.

His parents never used magic to punish him unless he’d done something really horrible, and Argus had never been punished by a stranger before.

But this hurt. And suddenly Argus knew exactly what this was punishment for. Suddenly, he knew that the pants-wetting had not gone unnoticed.

When he woke up, his face was pressed against the leather of an automobile seat. He must have woken up just as the car was stopping, because now his mother was pulling him from the car and it _still_ hurt, but Argus didn’t dare complain. He had earned that.

He was surprised when his mother sat him on the cold marble steps of an unfamiliar building and patted his shoulders.

“Be good.”

He wasn’t sure why they were here. He suddenly wanted to go home, and apparently his mum did too, because now she was back in the car and it was leaving without him. Argus tried to stand up suddenly but cried out in pain and gripped the steps he sat on as he watched the car pull away.

He sat there, blinking in disbelief for what seemed like ages. Maybe they’d come back for him. Maybe they forgot him. Maybe they were teaching him a lesson.

Something brushed against his leg, and Argus realised a stray kitten was at his feet, rubbing up against him and purring.

“They left me.”

For some reason, saying it out loud made it true and Argus started to cry, as much as he tried not to. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but surely it had been something horrible.

The kitten moved up the steps and pawed demandingly at him, brushing his arm with its whiskers. Argus patted it absently and blinked back tears, looking up after the long-gone car one last time.

With a sniffle of defiance, he decided he didn’t care about being good anymore.


End file.
